


while you were away

by SmilinStar



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 17:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10518615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmilinStar/pseuds/SmilinStar
Summary: “But seriously, Rip,” Sara starts up not two minutes later, and it doesn’t surprise him at all, “Just what did you get up to by yourself?”(Or Rip Hunter: Amateur Baker Extraordinaire)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This isn’t really speculation fic for the finale, but more a scene that I want to happen, but know probably won’t happen, and so I just wrote it because this show and this ship and this team is currently ruining my life. There you go.

 

\-----

 

“A whole year, stuck on board the Waverider as a miniature sized version of you, how’d that feel?”

He can tell she’s struggling to hold it in. The laughter. There’s the twist of her lips as she tries oh so very hard not to smile, likely imagining what he must have looked like. But it’s not working, her twinkling eyes give her away.

“The being stuck on the Waverider? Or being shrunk down to the size of a Borrower?”

Sara looks back at him confused.

He waves it away, “It’s an old British children’s television series, then film, circa 1990’s, never mind. Anyway. If the second, I was blissfully unware. If the first, torture.”

The smile vanishes instantly. A flicker of guilt crosses her face.

She joins him sitting there on the steps to his office, leaning back against the frame as he sits across from her.

He’s not sure what he’s doing here by himself. The rest of the team have disappeared, most likely to wash away the grime of their epic battle and collapse in a heap of exhaustion before the full reality of what they’ve managed to do hits them. But him? He guesses it’s a case of _old habits die hard_.

“I’m sorry,” she’s quick to apologise, “I didn’t think.”

“No, it’s quite alright,” he shrugs, “Don’t mind me, wallowing away. Seems Time and I don’t have an affinity for one another. You’d think I’d have learnt at least _that_ by now.”

As always Sara seems to read his mind. He doesn’t know when he became so damn transparent.

“I guess it doesn’t help much that resetting reality didn’t erase our memories. Why is that again? Actually, you know what? Never mind. I never got the explanation the first time around.”

He looks up to find Sara staring at the bridge, eyes flickering from the central console to the captain’s chair to the window, not settling on anything in particular. His eyes though seem to be fascinated by the dusting of freckles on her cheek. He has every intention to look away but just can’t bring himself to do so.

A year. A whole year of thinking they were dead. That she was dead.

She turns back to face him, eyes colliding with his and he can do nothing to hide the fact he’s been staring.

She makes nothing of it, holds his gaze and waits.

He clears his throat and looks away, “I suppose it can’t be easy for you either, knowing you were playing loyal henchman to Laurel’s killer all that time.”

Her eyes close, face turning away, and his apology is just as immediate as hers, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she breathes out, “You’re right. But then I remember his face when we won, when I got to stick that dagger in his chest and watch the lights turn out, and it’s not so bad.”

“Hmm, I imagine that must have been quite satisfying.”

And he should know.

“You would know.”

His head jerks up and he finds her lips have curved into a smile.

He shakes his head, “We make quite a pair, Miss Lance.”

She raises her brow and he hastens to clarify, “Of Captains.”

“Of course,” she smirks.

A comfortable silence descends amongst them then and a sense of peace seems to settle inside and it’s entirely unfamiliar but no less welcome.

“But seriously, Rip,” Sara starts up not two minutes later, and it doesn’t surprise him at all, “Just what did you get up to by yourself?”

Apart from the first few months of endlessly trying to send out a distress call, blocking out thoughts of them all being dead and it all being for naught, of walking around the Waverider in a haze of lack of sleep and food and reacquainting himself with his own shadow (he’d forgotten what his ship had looked like without the Legends on board), he can’t think of anything fun to reveal. She’s clearly angling for something light-hearted, and he can’t think of a thing, nothing worth sharing anyway-

“Oh bollocks,” he says suddenly, shooting upright and Sara looks equal part confused and amused. “Gideon?”

“Yes Captain?”

“Did you manage to clear away-”

“Your mess in the Waverider kitchen?” Gideon asks, and he can hear the sass, “I provide technical and logistical support, and when the occasion calls for it, clinical care. Domestic upkeep is not a part of my programming.”

“Of course it isn’t,” he mutters, before practically making a run for it, his coat flapping behind him.

Sara naturally follows, and he should have expected no less. He stops, spins around to tell her not to worry, he’ll deal with it, because he really doesn’t want her _or any of them_ to get a glimpse at just how well he really coped without them, but of course, _Time_ and their lack of accord, means he’s just moments too late.

It appears he underestimated his teams’ need for full stomachs over creature comforts.

“WOAH!”

“What the hell happened in here?”

Ray and Jax’s voices make their way to him and he turns the corner to find them standing there at the entrance to the kitchen, gaping aghast, as if an atomic bomb had gone off in there.

So maybe not so much an atomic bomb, but more like a _flour bomb_.

He rushes forward, pushing past them into the room, desperate to hide the evidence but he doesn’t know where to start.

Mick strolls in, bends at the waist to pick up an empty bottle of rum and shakes it from side side, “English, you been having a party without us?”

“I think I’m offended,” Martin remarks, taking in the carnage.

“Are those . . . _cakes?_ ” Sara asks, incredulous.

Ah yes. The cakes.

“I may have asked Gideon to pull up old archives of _The Great British Bake Off_ and fancied I could do a better job than most of the contestants. And I also may have got a little too competitive and carried away . . .” he trails off sheepishly.

“So that’s what you did all this time?”

“No,” he’s quick to defend, “Not all this time.”

“Captain Hunter also spent a significant proportion of his time inebriated and unconscious,” Gideon chirps up helpfully.

“Yes. Thank you Gideon.”

He can feel Sara’s concerned eyes on him, which he pointedly ignores.

“Look, anyway. Just give me half an hour, and I’ll have this mess cleared up.”

“You made these?” Ray asks, stopping in front of one particular cake, topped with a model of the _Millennium Falcon_ made entirely of fondant icing. He looks up at him with pure unadulterated joy, points at the cake and then back at himself, “Is this for me?”

“Uh,” is the only sound he manages to make, as his hand creeps up to clutch at the back of his neck.

Jax points at a cake adorned with various models of vintage cars and grins, “This is mine, right?”

“Um . . .”

“Where’s mine?” Mick asks, spilling the last drop of rum from one not-quite-empty-yet bottle he’s swiped off the floor.

Rip gives up all pretences, “I think you’ll have to forgive me, Mr Rory, but I didn’t bake you one for reasons I’m sure you can appreciate.”

Mick takes no offence, instead grabs at one of the half-demolished cakes and stuffs it in his mouth.

The rest of the team wait with bated breath.

Mick swallows, and stares back at him for a long moment and it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking. He answers the teams’ unspoken question by reaching down for seconds, and shrugging, “Not bad.”

After that it’s an excited commotion of noise as the team hurries around him searching for cutlery and plates and stopping to take in the aftermath of his cake explosion.

The embarrassment of having the physical manifestations of just how much he missed them all on display fades, only to be taken over by something else. Something warm and gooey, settling in the pit of his stomach; something he hasn’t felt in a long time as he takes in the scene in front of him.

“Birds,” Sara says beside him then, and he doesn’t even realise where he’d stopped.

Down on the table in front of him, is one of his _relatively_ simpler creations. A white single-tiered circular cake, decorated in tiny, intricately detailed and vividly colourful birds.

“You know, I would have expected you to go with red velvet and a dagger on the top.”

He huffs out a breath of laughter.

“This how you see me, Rip?” she asks, looking up at him.

He doesn’t answer her.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Yes. Well.” His cheeks stain with a blush.

Sara is thankfully merciful as she steps around him and points to another, “Now this must be yours!”

It’s a wibbly wobbly time mess of a cake. He’d thought it apt.

“Hey, Jax,” she calls out suddenly, “Pass me the candles.”

He knows he looks confused, “Sara, what are you doing?”

She ignores him, “Mick, lighter.”

He throws it across the room, and she catches it easily.

Jax hands her the candles, and she only needs the one as she sticks it into the top of his cake and lights it.

She looks up at him, “Make a wish, Captain.”

“It’s not my birthday.”

“No, but we need to celebrate. We reset reality. Amaya’s alive. Darhk and the Legion are dead and gone, but more importantly, we’re back together again. And we have cake. So I can’t think of a better excuse.”

“Why me?”

“Because,” she shrugs, which isn’t really an answer at all.

No, the answer is in her smile and the flicker of the flame reflecting in her eyes.

And so he does it.

Holds her gaze, makes a wish and _three, two, one . . ._

 

**End.**


End file.
